The Apostles’ BIG Mistake.
They didn’t GO!
Literally minutes before his ascension Jesus told the apostles to wait for the Holy Spirit.
Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for what my Father promised, which you heard from me. John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit a few days from now.
(Acts 1:4-5)
The operative word here is ‘wait’; wait for the promised Holy Spirit and then take action!
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
(Acts 1:8)
What did Jesus expect the apostles to do after Pentecost?
He expected them to GO!
They were supposed to leave Jerusalem after Pentecost. They were supposed to travel to the ends of the earth,
‘making disciples in all nations’.
How many apostles were ready to GO?
If ‘Apostle’ is a title (with a capital 'A'), then the answer is twelve, if we include Matthias.
But Peter made a mistake! He had been deceived. ‘Apostle’ wasn’t a title, it was a role, an emissary. Jesus chose the twelve ‘to be with him’ and so that he ‘might send them to preach’; first apprenticeship training and then sending. They were being trained to be emissaries. (see my article “The Apostles’ First Serious Mistake” for a deeper study of this mistake)
He appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, so that they would be with him and that he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
(Mark 3:14-15)
If ‘apostle’ is a role, an emissary, we have at least eighty-four apostles; the ‘Twelve Apostles’ plus the seventy-two that Jesus ‘sent out’ in Luke 10; giving the seventy-two the same commission and authority as He gave the Twelve.
Furthermore, if apostle is a role, how many of the one hundred and twenty disciples in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost, were also ready to GO?
Consider this,
Is an Apostle an apostle, if they don’t GO?
But it gets even worse.
God had prepared the way to GO.
Jerusalem was awash with the travelling companions, guides and translators the Apostles and apostles would need to take the Gospel to every nation under heaven; all eighty-four or more of them.
Going two-by-two, means that at least forty-two apostolic teams were ready to GO after Pentecost.
Do you see it?
The Exile.
The Exile had scattered Jews throughout the known world; with them went the Hebrew scriptures and the knowledge of the one, true God.
There were thousands of devout Jews throughout the known world who, being devout, were well-versed in the Hebrew scriptures. Jewish believers would require very little teaching to be equipped to take the Gospel to Gentile communities across the world.
The Gospel could have spread like wildfire!
Trade routes.
And God had also prepared the trade routes along which the Gospel could fly.
Below is a map of the trade routes that stretched across the known world; from Spain in the west, to China in the east; from Britannia in the north to Ethiopia and India in the south.
Can you imagine the conversations these devout Jews could have had while travelling back to their homes ‘in every nation under heaven’? Imagine the stories about Jesus these apostolic teams could have shared as they travelled along those trade-routes!
Had the apostles relied on the Family Model to spread the Gospel, the Gospel could have flown along these trade routes and could have reached the end of the earth within a single generation. That was the potential.
And think about this, these trade routes reached 98% of the world’s population by 100AD.
But the ‘Twelve Apostles’ didn’t GO.
They stayed for decades.
In Acts 8:1, when persecution scattered the disciples into neighbouring regions, we find the Twelve Apostles firmly rooted in Jerusalem;
And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
(Acts 8:1)
Or maybe just the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem while the other apostles were scattered; the Gospel began to spread.
And again, in Acts 15, when Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem, the Twelve Apostles are still there.
When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders.
(Acts 15:4)
This 'Jerusalem Council' took place about twenty years after Pentecost. Twenty years!
Surely, this was the greatest missed opportunity in the history of the Church!
The Death of the Family Model.
Had the apostles left Jerusalem soon after Pentecost, they would have avoided the many mistakes that led to the death of the Family Model and the creation of disastrous human organisations that would ultimately morph into Christianity; the meaningless conglomeration of sectarian, human organisations we know today.
By remaining in Jerusalem, the apostles were literally forced to address the challenges that arose in quick succession in this rapidly-growing mega church!
And create organisations they did. I have taken the liberty to offer, somewhat cynical, names for three of these fledgling organisations.
1. The Apostles Feet Financial Services Inc.
This organisation was created to attend to the distribution of money from the sale of properties;
There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
(Acts 4:34-35)
Jesus did not equip the Twelve Apostles to be financial managers.
2. Seven Good Men Logistics Inc.
This organisation was created to address a complaint by Hellenist Jews regarding the distribution of food in Acts 6.
The twelve summoned all the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty and we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
(Acts 6:2-4)
Jesus did not equip the Twelve Apostles to be human resource managers. Stephen is an example of misguided deployment; it is clear from Acts 7 that he was empowered by the Spirit to preach the Gospel, not serve at tables.
Twelve Apostles Ministries Inc.
This organisation was created before Pentecost with the appointment of Matthias as an apostle; a decision based on the false assumption that ‘apostle’ meant a title, 'Apostle', instead of a role, 'apostle'. Had Jesus wanted to replace Judas with another Apostle, he could easily have done so himself during the forty days between His resurrection and ascension. But He didn't.
Instead of ‘going to the end of the earth’ as emissaries of the Gospel, they remained in Jerusalem as leaders of the Jerusalem Mega Church; even persecution could not dislodge them from Jerusalem.
By Acts 15 ‘Twelve Apostles Ministries Inc’ was deeply embroiled in a multi-city controversy sparked by the Circumcision Party.
The apostles and the elders gathered together to consider this matter.
(Acts 15:6)
Jesus did not equip the Twelve Apostles to navigate the complex world of corporate, conflict resolution; loving families are far better equipped to deal with conflict resolution within the family.
Everything went downhill from there.
Satan was not idle!
As far as the biblical and Christian records are concerned, the Family Model of the Church was as dead as a dodo.
But Jesus is a specialist in resurrections! The Family Model is not dead!
It's day has come again!
The Next Bible Study.
In Part 5. of “The Church is a Family”, we will consider the the ‘competing model’, the Synagogue, that usurped the place of the Family Model in the early churches.
BIG mistakes happened in the Old Testament and they happened in the New; none of us is perfect.
There has never been a better time to be a disciple of Jesus Christ!
